The Government is Already Paying for Your Health Insurance, Buddy
About this episode
The episode discusses the potential for universal health insurance in the U.S. by analyzing current government spending on health care.
About 18% of U.S. GDP every year gets spent on health care. Half of that, 9%, is coming from the government, which is about the whole cost of other countries’ public health programs. In other words, for what the U.S. spends on Medicare, Medicaid, Tricare, VA benefits, and the tax write-off for employer-sponsored plans, we could have free basic health insurance for everyone . This is why the co-authors of the 2023 book “We’ve Got You Covered” describe the current health insurance system as a total tear-down. We could have universal insurance coverage for all with no tax hike if we started building from the ground up. Chapters : 0:00 Announcements 0:58 Retcon — Costco cashier's $33/hr job and career security 2:49 Terms & Conditions — Political economy, Cost Sharing, Gatekeeping 7:45 The Big Pilcrow: “Americare… Just Enough” 8:08 Healthcare vs. health insurance — why this is really an insurance/payer fight 12:53 We have 5+ public health programs already 17:07 Health economist Amy Finkelstein's research: "It's a tear-down, not a fixer-upper" 19:55 The proposed system — universal basic coverage + letting “rich people rich" without letting them opt out 28:11What Americans would…
People in this episode
Hosts: Kathryn Anne Edwards, Robin Rauzi
Topics covered
- health care spending
- government health programs
- universal health insurance
- health insurance system
- public health programs
- health economist research
Keywords
- health insurance
- universal coverage
- government spending
- public health
- Medicare
- Medicaid
- health economist
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Medicare, Medicaid, Tricare, VA, Optimist Economy
Books & works: We’ve Got You Covered
More episodes of Optimist Economy
- The U.S. is in the Hole. Will We Stop Digging?
- Occupy! An Unfinished Uprising: The Invitation (Ep. 1)
- Stop Donating Your Vacation Days to Your Boss
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